I’m getting ready for a trip. It’s been on my calendar for an entire year. I don’t plan anything that far in advance, so you already know that Marion is involved. She’s the planner.

As savvy as she is with her fancy I-Phone, she sometimes still relies on paper and pencil. Her entire life is scheduled on a 24-month, spiral bound, one-month-per-two-page calendar. And she intentionally uses a pencil to write down her important notes because her life moves so fast the schedule can change in a heartbeat.

She hates to scratch out anything in ink on her calendar. It bothers her enough as it is just to erase an entry.

Which is to say that her calendar is very neat and orderly. The many different facets of Marion are color coded with highlighters. I don’t really know the system, but let’s say blue is for personal appointments, red is for church, yellow is for her cleaning jobs, green is for smoking ribs, purple is for shopping lists, pink is jobs around the house.

You get the idea.

I’m not sure, but I think I might have a color, too. She fits me in.

But I don’t mean to rag on her or make fun of her organizational skills. Okay, maybe a little.

Anyways, back to my trip.

Leaving town in March causes me some angst because I need to get my tax returns ready before I leave. I take most of my adult responsibilities in stride. I cope with the unpleasant. But putting together all the stuff to do my taxes turns my stomach.

I can deal with being a taxpayer. Not much choice there. But it’s the endless, tedious information gathering required to file my taxes that gets my goat. I try to put everything in one place, but I end up with several special places that hold vital information. And I always seem to forget where I put it all.

What really drives me crazy is that I’ve had over two months to do this, but I waited until yesterday afternoon to get started. I leave town in three days. My file is due to the accountant by the 28th of the month. I get home from my trip on the 29th, which means that dealing with my taxes cannot wait.

This is the opposite of being organized. I’ve dug through all my papers, scratched notes on other papers, found folded up receipts, looked up credit card statements, and downloaded important documents.

After all that, I still came up short. I needed one more lousy number to finish. Seems like I always have one thing missing.

So, I did what any responsible male would do. I stuffed all my taxable vitals into an envelope and gathered up my fishing gear so I could sort through my tackle box for the trip.

That’s right. I’m headed out on a 10-day trip to Lake Kissimmee, Florida. This is my second trip to Grape Hammock Fish Camp on the south end of the lake. 35,000 acres of fish habitat where the crappie and shellcracker hide in the shallows under the shade of the lily pads. And if I’m lucky, I might haul in a whopper bass or two.

Getting ready for a trip like this is really pretty easy. Shorts. T-shirts. A floppy hat. Sunglasses. Shoes optional. There’s a washer and dryer at the fish camp if I get fish guts on my shorts.

Other than that, the packing list is rather short.

I’m an old guy, so I need my meds. This will require that I visit the pharmacy tomorrow to make sure I have enough drugs to function for the next 10 days. My blood pressure will need regulating. And my bladder will appreciate the other pill.

I also want to be sure that I take a flashlight with me. The evening entertainment at fish camp is usually one of two things. Dominoes or gators. We play dominos inside at the kitchen table. We take the flashlight out after dark to walk the canal by the docks so we can “shine” the gators that lie in the grass at the water’s edge.

Before this same trip last year, the only place I had ever seen a live alligator was at one of those roadside attractions on the way through Florida when I was a kid. Fishing on Lake Kissimmee, we saw gators everywhere. Some of them 10 feet from the boat. Sometimes we saw just the eyes floating among the lily pads. A few times we found a big one sunning himself up on the bank.

It’s mating season down there. At night, the males grunt like pigs to notify the less than cooperative ladies that they are on the prowl. With a good flashlight, it’s pretty easy to count six or eight sets of beady eyes up and down the line. I keep my distance. I have no illusions of wanting to wrestle a gator.

Then, there’s dominoes. Last year, I was the rookie. I lost nearly every game. Not gracefully, I admit. When I lost, it was like a NASCAR pile-up in the third turn. They threatened to put my picture in the dictionary next to “Loser.” But I got better as the week went on. I finally won one game by the time everyone else got tired of playing.

This year, I’m ready. I even got busy in the shop and made some tile holders and a train station for the starting tiles. Mexican Train is our game. It’s rowdy. It’s competitive. It can be vicious for a group of senior citizens who take dominoes almost as seriously as fishing.

The last thing I need to do before I leave is to put a hold on my mail. Where I live is so rural that my post office does not participate in the online services of the USPS. I’ll have to go down to the desk tomorrow and sign a form. This way, they’ll hold all my coupon booklets, leaf guard flyers, and Medicare bulletins until I get home.

The forecast for the trip is sunny and hot. Mid-eighties most days. A few cool mornings may require me to wear a long-sleeved shirt. I’ll add that to the packing list.

Terry and Sandra are already down there. They have a seasonal home at the fish camp. In a few days, Marion and I will drive down with Joe and Romona. By Friday we’ll be out on the water in search of the perfect fishing hole. We’ll tie on a line and a bobber. Hook a minnow. And drop in amongst the lily pads.

If we’re lucky, we’ll bring home more filets than you can shake a stick at. I’m still eating from last year’s catch.

I love everything about this trip. The company. The lake. The fishing, which is guaranteed to produce some catching. The sunshine. The fresh strawberries. We go out a couple of nights to hear some good old-fashioned gospel quartet singing. This really is the perfect get-away.

I still need to run down that one number for my tax return. I’m gonna need that.

Unless, of course, a gator gets me.